Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us on this Monday on The WallBuilders Show. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And there's a lot of hot topics on the table to start the weekend or start the week because the weekend was so full of so many different things. And of course all three of us guys still traveling all over the country. Tim and I got to see our friends, Victor and Eileen Marks, just for a few minutes this weekend. David, I don't know if y'all, if you got to visit with Victor at all this weekend, you were at the same event we were. It was great to see so many conservative groups, by the way, I just want to say to people that are, have been black-pilled in thinking, you know, we've lost the country or whatever, man, you have no idea how much hard work is going on on the ground in every community, all over this country with so many wonderful, wonderful ministries. And when we get to work with other ministries and be around them like that, I come home encouraged. But I gotta tell you, I'm a little bit discouraged by the response of some of the folks in Colorado in the Republican primary, just like in Texas guys, we're facing it with the Paxton race, the Cornyn people not coming over and supporting, you know, John Cornyn even supposedly saying Republicans need to be taught a lesson in some of these races. I mean, that never works. And then of course you've got people in Colorado, not supported Republicans, not supporting Victor Marx, cause their guy in the primary didn't win. So what do we say to people that are dealing with this across the country? 

Tim Barton [00:01:26] I would say, first of all, that it's incredibly short-sighted, that if we're thinking we're going to teach Republicans a lesson in this, so the idea of teaching Republicans a lesson is giving seats to Muslims, to Marxists, to communists? What an idiotic position. I understand that when there's hurt feelings, when there are emotions involved, emotion is not always rational. I totally get that, but again, It's incredibly short-sighted. I think it's people that are confusing, you know, maybe this is like in their mind, hey, this is like Bush and Perot and Bill Clinton kind of scenario where, you know maybe our side doesn't win, but you know how much damage can the other side do? And the reality is, hey guys, the other side can literally do things to destroy this nation. If you don't remember back up to when President Biden and under his administration, they opened up the Southern border where they're literally importing you, you could argue 10, 20 million votes. Now, obviously, we don't think that's going to fully happen. President Trump has done an incredible job trying to not just close the border, but enforce immigration and do things. But again, this is what you have seen from a specific party, from their ideology. We look at the Democratic Socialists of America, et cetera, that literally want to remake, remold, abolish things of the Constitution. This is not the lesson you want to teach Republicans. And by the way, if you want teach Republicans a lesson. You do that in the offseason, you do that in the primary, you don't do that in the general where you're gonna forfeit the championship to teach somebody on your side a lesson. But to forfeit the championship, you literally are giving people that hate this country that don't believe in the difference between boys and girls, that think it's fine for boys to play in girls' sports or to go in the girls' locker rooms. They think it’s okay for children who are being misled and propagandized into believing that somehow they're in the wrong body, that God didn't make them significantly special the way they are. I mean like go down the list. When you have one side advocating max boosting the murdering of unborn children and yet it's okay to give them power because you know we want to teach our side a lesson. Again, just as idiotic as can be and it's short-sighted and this doesn't mean that you have to agree with the candidates that you might ultimately vote for no, you don't agree with them on everything but we're not giving out a Valentine with our votes. We're, we are making a move on a chess board to try to prevent the least amount of damage and to do the most amount of good possible. So that's a little bit of my soapbox. But Dad, yeah, you were there this weekend where you and I actually, we did get a picture with Victor and Eileen. We got to talk and encourage them a little bits. And he's talked about the grounds. Well, he's saying that things that encourage him at his rallies at 70% of the people that show up are people that have not been active in voting. And so this is something that is definitely reaching in grassroots. But you know, Rick, as you mentioned this is something that's real also in Texas with a lot of people that were very strong in the Cornyn camp that don't like Ken Paxton. We have to be what Thomas Sowell talked about that don t be a stage one thinker don't just think about how i feel in the moment. Think a little longer term to stage two to stage three, think down the road what is this going to produce or what is this going cost me based on this decision? And we have to be more strategic thinkers. 

David Barton [00:04:51] Let me jump in there. I mean, we're talking about two different races here. One's a race for governor. One's the race for US Senate. And people need to understand that personality is not part of the US Senate, that is one vote out of 100. The person you send there, they're gonna vote with a group or against that group. If you say, I don't like Paxton, I'm gonna send Talarico as a message. What you have just done is you have helped the other Democrats to move forward with their Democrat Socialist agenda and eviscerate every basic value we have. The senator does not make that much difference except as part of the group. Now, with Colorado, yeah, a governor makes a whole lot of difference. That's the chief executive officer. It's like electing a president for your state and to say, well, I'm gonna sit it out. I don't like the way the primary, it's kind of like saying, you know, I'm a Baptist and I don't like Presbyterians, so I'm going to vote for the Muslims and let the Muslims take over. That's crazy. You got 80 percent you agree with and 20 percent you disagree with and you're going to hand it over to somebody that you agree on zero percent, you're gonna hand it over to him I mean or them? That's like suicide that's really it's crazy stuff and that's some of what we're seeing you're voting against an agenda that is against everything you believe. You can't do that America. This is a critical time for America and you cannot sit this out because you don't like the personality involved. And again, remember, you're not electing a personality. You'll see that with ads. They'll spend tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, but in the Senate, that's only one vote. It's a group that you're helping support, not an individual. 

Rick Green [00:06:23] Well, like you guys are saying, I mean, just using common sense. Yeah. Okay. Maybe you don't like somebody that won the primary because of this or that, but if you just do a heads up comparison to the Democrat, they're running against in both the major cases we talked about, it's a significant difference. I mean these are Democrats like Talarico in Texas and, I forget the guy's name in Colorado, Phil, whatever his name is. Anyway, their records are horrific. I mean pro transgender stuff, abortion up to birth, I'm  mean all kinds of horrible, horrible things, so it's not even close, not even a close call. It's really just an emotional decision to say, I just can't bring myself to vote for this person that I was so against in the primary. And all three of us have been there. I mean, how many times did we campaign against Cornyn and he ended up winning? And so we had to support him and we didn't go to support the Democrat because we were upset that he didn't win. And I could, I mean I think about people that beat me in primaries. I mean the two times I ran statewide for Supreme Court, I'd turn around and support the person that beat be in that primary because the Democrat was far, far worse. So there's a lack of maturity, I think, in this whole thing. And hopefully people are, are waking up as we get closer to the election. And of course, our guest today, we're going to talk about not only individuals, but like you were saying, David, the team, the whole team. And when you elect someone as governor, they bring in a huge team. A lot of appointments, just like being president, a lot of people that they do a lot different things. And then of course as US Senator, the team who has the majority in the US Senate is going to be a massive game changer one way or the other. So guys, Jordan Lawrence will be with us from First Liberty. Now typically when we have First Liberty on, we're talking about a Supreme Court case. In this case, we are going to be talking about the Democrat Socialist of America. 

David Barton [00:07:59] Yeah, Jordan Lawrence is an amazing guy. He's got really an unbelievable pedigree. He goes back to working with Mike Ferris at Home School Legal Defense Association for a number of years. And then he moved over to work with Jay Sekulow at American Center for Law and Justice for a number of years then he moved over the work with Tim and Beverly LaHaye with Concerned Women for America for a number of years. I've known him with all these positions and now he was senior counsel for Alliance Defense Fund, ADF, and now he's working with first Liberty. So that's five absolutely amazing groups that he's been with over the years. He's got 40-some-odd years of legal experience, so he's quite an amazing guy. Gonna have a really good insight, particularly looking at things like the Democrat Socialists of America who have a number of candidates running in this particular election. It's amazing that since 2019, DSA, which is just hardcore socialists, have elected over 250 officials and they've got 222 running in this election this year. It's just unbelievable. 

Rick Green [00:08:59] Jordan Lawrence, our special guest, when we return, you're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:11:08] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Jordan Lawrence with us from First Liberty. Great folks over there, always on the front lines. Jordan, thanks for coming on, man. 

Jordan Lorence [00:11:16] It's great to be here, Rick. 

Rick Green [00:11:19] Well, it's obviously for some people that haven't been paying attention, they may think our topic today sounds weird. We've maybe even joked about this in the past, but it looks like we literally have a choice between Republicans and communists. I mean, these people really do wanna get rid of the Constitution. What are your thoughts on just how bold the Democrat Socialists are getting? 

Jordan Lorence [00:11:40] Well, our founder, Kelly Shackelford, recently wrote about this, and I wholeheartedly agree. And the way to think about this, I think, is to understand the beauty of the Constitution designed by the Framers is checks and balances as well as federalism and separation of powers. Now, that may sound to abstract you, but Justice Scalia has said, our freedom is in the fact that we have checks and balances. And what the Democratic Socialists of America want to do is obliterate all of them. So they want to go from a House and a Senate to just a House. They want to make the President not a co-equal branch, but subservient to the big House of Representatives. They want the Supreme Court not to be a separate branch, but to be subservient to the wishes of the majority. And The Framers understood that if we have just blanket majority rule, minority rights are going to be crushed. So that's why we have limited government checks and balances where the President can veto what Congress does and Congress has to approve who's on the Supreme Court, but they don't pick who it is, that's the president. And Justice Scalia has said, before he died... What protects our constitutional rights, like free exercise of religion, is not necessarily only that they're written in the Bill of Rights, but that we have checks and balances to restrain the majority from violating those rights. And the Democratic Socialists just want to get rid of all of that. I would add the Electoral College is another one that they want to be rid of. It is just a recipe for utter disaster with their platform advocates for. 

Rick Green [00:13:37] Jordan so many things in there that that we could talk about. But the court issue is the one that just kind of makes me chuckle. I mean that's that's got to be a little bit comical especially for you guys that have been arguing before the Supreme Court for years. The left used to worship the court I mean that was where they got most of their policy changes from and now all of a sudden, they want to make it subservient they don't like the decisions coming out I guess 

Jordan Lorence [00:13:57] And I cannot overstate how dumb that is that we want, as Americans, to have an independent judiciary. Now, back in the 1960s with the Warren Court, they were just going off the rails with their crazy living constitutionalism, but the check and balances is for the people to elect a president and a Senate that will support candidate that interpret the constitution the right way. And we've had that in President Trump, and President Trump has won some cases, and he's lost some cases. That is the quintessential classic example of an independent judiciary. That's exactly what we want to have. If we end up being like Venezuela, where they had the president, that they basically had the kind of socialist, where the Supreme Court of the nation was subservient, to the elected officials, then they're just rubber stamps. They're not an independent judiciary and people lose respect for it. And I just think it is absolutely nutty. And plus, even people that are democratic socialists don't exactly all agree on what the right result is. What's the right results in this particular case or that particular case could differ even among the democratic socialists. So that's why you wanna have the checks and balances. It is absolutely crazy for them to suggest. I do not, to me, it is reckless and they have no understanding of what they're talking about and what they are going to get. It would be detrimental to our republic as well as even their own agenda. If they can just replace people they don't like, who's going to respect that? Sorry, I'm getting a little heated about this.

Rick Green [00:15:51] No, I hear you, of course it's what you do. I mean, do you think they are just throwing out the craziest ideas they can to gin up a base or to, to rile people up? I mean it doesn't even seem like when you watch their interviews, sometimes they thought this stuff through. Cause sometimes when you, I've watched these interviews where people will throw this stuff back at them and they just like it looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Right. Or do you, do they genuinely want these things? 

Jordan Lorence [00:16:16] Well, I think that this is my impression, I could be wrong. I think they genuinely want these things and don't realize how foolish they are. The book of Proverbs says, Solomon wrote that he who rolls a stone will have a stone rolled back. He who digs a pit will fall into it. And he who rolls a stone will have the stone rolled on them. And I think, that they don't realized that the Supreme Court will not be a respected body if it's viewed as a political hack just doing the will of elected officials, that when the elected officials are doing something wrong, it will not be a check and balance because either they're just gonna rubber stamp whatever the bad guys in the one legislative body are doing or when they oppose them, the legislative body will put the hammer down and replace them with justices who are yes men and yes women. And that's just unconscionable. And I think they're very selective. Because we run through the cases, they say, well, we don't like that they reversed Roe v. Wade, and they said the president, and that happens to be Trump right now, gets all this executive power. They've forgotten. President Trump has lost on the tariffs, he's lost on birthright citizenship, and whatever you think about those issues, whether you made the right thing, it is showing the vitality of a independent judiciary, and that's exactly what we want under our Constitution. And if we don't like it, we'll change Congress and the president to get a Supreme Court we want. 

Rick Green [00:17:51] Well, and speaking of even the congressional piece, to hear them say abolish the Senate or some of these crazy things, I mean, radical remaking of what has been the, you know, well, Madison would say the worst form of government other than every other one. We would say absolutely the best example of a constitutional republic the world has ever known. And so they want to rad, I mean this is tinkering around they're talking about here. This is some radical changes. 

Jordan Lorence [00:18:16] And see, and I think they have to realize that the beauty and wisdom of the Constitution was to put these anti-majoritarian checks and balances in, like the Electoral College and the fact that every state has equal representation in the U.S. Senate, so that you do not get one dominating regional interest dictating who's president and what goes on, what laws get passed by Congress. Because if a president, all they have to do is run in New York City and Los Angeles and Chicago, you're gonna get a very different president. And also, if it's just a unibody, this majority, those types of areas, those urban blue areas are gonna be the ones dictating everything for the whole nation. And that's why you have these restraints in to stop it. And then what I think is crazy right now, the 10 smallest states in the union have, there's equal numbers of Democratic and Republican senators right now. You know, Vermont, Wyoming, Rhode Island, you know, these other states, New Hampshire, it's all balanced out right now so the system is working. And for them to say we're going to throw that all out to me is just crazy. 

Rick Green [00:19:38] Jordan, what do you think the impact has been so far? I mean, a lot of this has gone viral. A lot of people are hearing about it. Do you think it moves the needle in the elections at all? 

Jordan Lorence [00:19:49] Well, I sure hope it does because I think, you know, and this is, I think the crucial turning point will be how educated are the average American voters to understand this. It was like when the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist Papers were written. They were written like op-eds in a newspaper for the common person to read and understand. And they went through all these things about the importance of checks and balances. Do people understand it? And rather than, yeah, that pesky Senate and, you know, Electoral College, that's unfair. The Supreme Court, they don't do whatever we want. We want yes men in all those positions and just to knock out all the restraints. I hope there's enough people who are voting for these senators that are advocating this and Congress, members of Congress, the candidates for Congress that are advocating this craziness, that they will be voted down. Because if they become in power and vote this, it is going to be, people are going to regret because those who roll a stone will have a stone roll back on them. And they've gotta understand that that's what's gonna happen. It's not gonna be nirvana or utopia if they get all those, if they kick out all those restraints. 

Rick Green [00:21:11] Amen, so well said so well-said Jordan Lorence. Appreciate you guys at First Liberty! Y'all keep up the great work! Folks can go sign up for your emails donate at the website FirstLiberty,org. We appreciate y'all Thanks, Jordan. 

Jordan Lorence [00:21:23] Thank you. 

Rick Green [00:21:24] Stay with us folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton 

Rick Green [00:22:34] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Jordan Lorence. Thanks to First Liberty for all, obviously the legal work that they do, but also even in this case, the commentary about what's happening in this, in this election. And guys, I know every candidate that's a Democrat this year is not necessarily part of Democrat Socialists for America, but they are empowering the Democrat Socialists for America if they get elected. Cause again, it's their team. It's the, it’s the, it is the agenda that they're all going to end up pushing for and when even Bill Maher and James Carville, some of these long time Democrats are saying. This is too much crazy for me. You know, this is getting way out there on the left. 

Tim Barton [00:23:09] Yeah, when they're saying, literally, we want to remove all the checks and balances. I mean, like just what we heard about on the interview, they don't believe in the separation of powers. They don't believe in the checks and balances. They want to abolish the Supreme Court as it's known. They would literally remove the Electoral College, literally remove the Senate. They want to move to a pure democracy. And when you have nations that are pure democracies, they do not stay democracies, they move to dictatorships, and that's the reality of how it works. It's why the Founding Fathers did not create a democracy. They created a constitutional republic, and people often get confused because they say, wait a second, but we all get to vote. Yes, it's it's a democratic process of electing our officials, but the fact that we are electing officials to represent us, that's how our public works. And the officials we choose are bound by law of a constitution. So we are a constitutional republic where we have elections, but by the way, in the elections, it's not just the will of the majority, the way that we understand it, because you actually, you have to be a US citizen. You actually, there are some parameters that we do put around how the voting process happens and who's actually legally allowed to vote. And also, by the way, this is where the Democratic Socialist America even disagree. And I don't have time to get into this a lot, but all of these things are why it matters that we show up and vote. And guys, I know we are almost out of time, but Rick, I don't want us to overlook the reality that there's also something else really fun happening tonight. That you are kicking off tonight after I think you're on Flashpoint tonight from 7/8 central time and then it's soon as that's over, hey Rick, what's happening at the end of Flashpoint when that's over? 

Rick Green [00:24:49] Yeah, especially for those of you that'll be watching, we'll remind you right at the end of Flashpoint to just get online and join us for Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. This is gonna be a huge national class, so people from all over the country are joining us online together. We're gonna go through the course together, and each week we'll have a lot of the different friends of Patriot Academy and WallBuilders with us. Tonight, it'll be some of the Flashpoint folks. We'll have our iVoterGuide friends next week. Of course, David and Tim will be joining us on some of these. We've got First Liberty. Actually, since we had Jordan today, We'll have. Hopefully Kelly and in a couple of weeks as well So it's just a great time to come together with people across the country for the last four Mondays of the election to be reminded what we're fighting for, why it's so important. And then for the four weeks after the election we'll be talking about whatever happens in the election, here's the next steps and here's how we apply this Biblical Citizenship in in Modern America. So yeah looking forward to that PatriotAcademy.com. If you just go to the main website there’ll, be a banner there where you can sign up and get the links to jump on with us at 8 o'clock central that's six o'clock over on the West Coast and then, yeah, a little bit late for the folks on the East Coast start at nine o'clock with the folks on the East Coast. 

Tim Barton [00:25:54] Well, one of the things that I also had on my list to mention today, we don't have time today. So hopefully tomorrow we can get to it. I mentioned to you guys something that happened at Cowboys Stadium. Over the weekend that if people don't know I would encourage you look it up. Check it out. You will be so encouraged that Cowboy Stadium was filled with Christians over the weekend. When I mean filled, I mean filled! 80,000 plus people there for a time of prayer, asking for God to forgive the nation, repentance, revival. Like guys, we talk so often that God is on the move, incredible things are happening. So tomorrow I definitely want to highlight it. It's so encouraging what happened this weekend in Cowboy Stadium. 

Rick Green [00:26:38] Definitely we will. Thanks for listening today, folks. Be sure and join us tomorrow for that. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.